


Closure

by Ashling



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-13 22:38:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14122344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: written years ago





	Closure

“I’d do it all over again,” Sally says to Sherlock, later, over lukewarm coffee and the second body discovery of the night. 

“God, Sally, must you always be so obvious?”  He sniffs the man’s shirtsleeve.

“It’s true.” She is annoyed with the fact that she had phrased it rather bluntly (obviously, yes, but that’s _his_ lexicon)—Thaman and his Hallmark postcards have pummeled any appreciation for the straightforward yet commonplace out of her—but he doesn’t have to know that. And besides, the statement still stands.

“I need a selection of perfumes with a strong tone of lilac and notes of vanilla,” he says.

“What, you don’t already know the brand?”

He glares, straightening. “I haven’t had time to keep abreast of the latest developments in olfactory accessories.”

“Yes, you’ve been busy.”

“You’d really do it all over again,” he says, producing his magnifying glass from his pocket, and there’s the question-statement, inflection-free tone Thaman was missing, done to perfection by a master of the craft, just enough disdain to make it distant from himself, like he doesn’t care.

“I would,” she says. She knows the full weight of what it means, and it’s not perfect, but it’s true.

“I’ve taken down a network of criminals so large you could only imagine it.”

“You’re delusional.”

“I know how to kill people without leaving any evidence.”

“You know, thats not as nifty as you think it is.”

“I’m very good at killing people,” he says, with feeling, and in light of what she’s just said, that’s not very comforting. 

“Yes, yes you are,” she says, steady.

He considers it, hesitating. Then: “In the advanced stages of disseminated intravascular coagulation, the organs shut down; the kidneys, in particular, suffer if the small clots restrain blood flow, as happens when the balance of fibrinolysis is disturbed, triggering the release of a transmembrane glycoprotein,” he tries, last-ditch.

“I don’t doubt it,” she says, deadpan.

He rocks back on his heels. “Things do have to add up,” he says. It’s not a total non sequitur, but it doesn’t matter, because he could say the sky is green or I hate you or forty-five bottles of beer on the wall and it wouldn’t matter. The words are just a placeholder for _all right, then_. It’s acceptance and as much approval as she’ll ever get from Sherlock Holmes for the rest of her life, and she commits it to memory. And then he’s bending again and the look’s gone.

For a split second, the silence verges on companionable.

“Didn’t need you to tell me that, Sherlock.” Something unnecessary, yes; something she didn’t know she’d wanted so badly, though.

Snapping up to deliver a glare going beyond run-of-the-mill affronted to deeply, _deeply_ , offended: “ _What_ did you just say?“ 

“Are you selectively deaf, _Freak_?” She makes the ending plosive snap. 

For a split second, he gives her a smile that’s almost a smirk instead of the other way around, which she returns. Then he squints down and sees some large speck through the glass and says, “Thank you,” almost absently, having already moved on in in his mind.

With a quiet “Guess that answers my question,” she goes back to waiting (and, it has to be admitted, trying to remember, unsuccessfully the major perfume-selling cosmetics companies and their various shop locations about London).

More sniffing, more inspecting. He hands her a couple things to bag and tag. And then the radio crackles to life. Someone’s found another body upstairs.

“Freak’s on his way,” she says into the radio. John, who’s just arrived from talking with Greg, shoots her a dirty look. With a swirl of that exceedingly ridiculous coat, Sherlock is off again, gone. 

But he’ll be back; he always is. She looks blankly after him, then down at the corpse, and sighs. Left for bag and tag duty again. "Bloody prat,” she she tells the late Donald McKierney, and gets on with it.

**Author's Note:**

> written years ago


End file.
